| A few years ago, US record
companies decided to challenge
file sharing in the courts.
First, they went after the
biggest file sharing network at
the time: Napster.
Their main purpose was to shut it
down which they succeeded at
doing, but the precedence was
set. File
sharing was soon to become
illegal even by individuals. The
record companies had a bit of a
set back a couple of years later.
The technology which allowed file
sharing was stated to be legal,
only the act of individuals
sharing music
downloads was illegal.
Therefore, record companies began
to go after individuals to set a
precedence that if you download
music from a file sharing system,
you are breaking the law.
Then Napster had an idea. They
thought "let's work together
with the record companies to
provide music for listeners at a
cost, then pass part of the
earnings on to individual
artists". Legal music
downloading was born. Today there
are several sites like Napster
including eMusic.com,
MusicNet, Real Rhapsody,
MSN Music, Yahoo! Music,
Musicnow, itunes, Sony-Connect, Buy.com,
Walmart, Virgin-Digital,
PureTracks, and MSN Music. Some
of these sites are listed in our legal
mp3 reviews.
So, to answer the question
"what makes legal music
download sites different than
file sharing networks?",
artists get paid out of the
gingival songs you purchase.
Agreements are formed with unions
within each country, so some
sites are only available in the US
such as Real Rhapsody,
because they only have an
agreement to allow US residents
to download music.
With all that said, there is
one more important element that
needs to be clarified. What about
file sharing programs that charge
a fee. Where does that money go? Click
here to learn more...
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